Stone Sour

For a time, Stone Sour was merely known (and hardly known, at that) as a side project of that singer from Slipknot, Corey Taylor. But in recent years, and thanks to a string of well-received albums, the Des Moines, Iowa band has become a force to contend with their own right. Ironically, Stoner Sour, which was named after the popular alcoholic drink, actually predated Slipknot’s birth and Taylor’s involvement with the infamous masked group, having been formed by the singer, rhythm guitarist Josh Rand, bassist Shawn Economaki, and drummer Joel Ekman in 1992. Unfortunately, the alternative rockers achieved little recognition before dissolving five years later — just as Taylor officially joined the soon-to-rise Slipknot, taking along lead guitarist Jim Root (who had joined Stone Sour in 1995). But in 2002, Corey reconvened his old band for the record-ing of a belated eponymous debut, and then doubled down four years later with an ac-claimed sophomore effort named ‘Come What(ever) May,’ which spun off a handful of radio singles, earned a Grammy nomination, and went Gold in the U.S. Stone Sour would part with Ekman later that same year (replacing him with Roy Mayorga), Economacki in 2011 (replaced by Johnny Chow) and, surprisingly, Jim Root in 2014, but none of this stopped Taylor and Rand from guiding the group towards continued success via 2010’s ‘Audio Secrecy’ and the ambitious, two-CD concept album ‘House of Gold &amp; Bones’ (2012 and ’13), which came accompanied by a comic book series, to boot.